Friday – Prophets

Reading – Amos 5-6

Highlight Verse:

“It is the Lord who created the stars, the Pleiades and Orion. He turns darkness into morning and day into night. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The Lord is his name!”
‭‭Amos‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

When was the last time you looked up at the night sky?

In modern times, light and air pollution have made stargazing more challenging.

Here in Colorado, wildfires to the west of us have made it very difficult.

But once the fires are gone, I can drive an hour to the west to Loveland Pass, and the sky opens up to nearly the splendor that the Israelites would have seen.

It is magnificent!

The Pleiades (“Kimah” in Hebrew) were a group of bright stars said to be seven sisters constantly chased by the hunter Orion (“Kesil” in Hebrew).

It is thought that the Hebrew astronomers realized there were many more stars. The Hebrew word Kimah implies they thought the cluster contained 100 stars.

We now know there are over 1,000 bright burning stars in the cluster about 440 lights years away.

The constellation Orion is not a cluster at all, ranging from 244 to 1344 light years away and consisting of a variety of celestial objects including blue giants, blue supergiants, a red supergiant and even a nebula.

Given how little they knew about astronomy, the stars must have been fascinating.

Given what we know now, they should be even more fascinating.

We now know the mind boggling distances and sizes of the stars.

Through powerful telescopes, we have images of the stunning beauty of the various celestial bodies.

Knowing that God created them with His words should cause utter awe and worship for how powerful and creative God is.

My challenge to you today is to find a time soon to get away from the city lights and admire the amazing work of God that is the night sky.

Let that increase your worship.

Have you ever spent time stargazing away from city lights?
What do you remember most about that?